Christmas Eve Encounter
by LittleLongHairedOutlaw
Summary: While in the supermarket on Christmas Eve, Christine meets her old lover, and it reinforces all of her love for her husband. Modern AU.


**A/N: Written as a PotO Secret Santa gift for operaofthephantom. It did not turn out quite as I expected it would, but I hope you enjoy it, Meg!**

 **It's a modern AU, and because I have no concept of scale when it comes to the States or France, (or anywhere where it takes more than 4 hours to drive from one side of your country to the other), it's pretty much set in Ireland without being explicitly Irish. But I am a lazy bum who gets too tired thinking about these things.**

* * *

The supermarket is busy, busier than it really has any right to be on Christmas Eve afternoon. Though, Christine supposes, idly flicking through the Blu-Ray DVDs, swaying to 'Last Christmas' as it plays softly over the intercom, the busy-ness is not unexpected. Everywhere seems to be busy, full of last minute shoppers and panicked parents (the man next to her wavers between _Barbie in the Nutcracker_ and _Elf_ , first glancing at one, and then at the other, back and over as if he is watching some sort of tennis match, before he takes _Barbie_ , sets it on top of his overflowing trolley, and moves on.) All of that busy-ness for one day. Some of them are as if they are stocking up for the apocalypse! Have they forgotten that everywhere will be open again in two days? Or are they simply planning on not venturing out again until they need to? If that's the case, she can't blame them. Not with this snow, and the threat of more rotten weather. Best to stay indoors as long as possible.

Maybe they all just have really big families…

It's a possibility. An unlikely one, probably, but a possibility. Why is she looking through the Blu-Rays again? She already has everything she needs. All gifts and everything sorted. And she has taken the precaution of locking away Erik's lock-picking kit, to keep him from searching. Of course ,he pretends to be unconcerned because that's just the way he is, but damn if he's not the nosiest man alive, even barring the issue of the, ah, _nose_. After so long together you'd think she'd have stopped using a word like nosy, but nope. Not yet anyway.

A voice behind her makes her jump. "I know _Beauty and the Beast_ is a great film and all, but do you really need to stare at the case so long?" That voice. It has been more than ten years since she heard that voice, but she would know it anywhere, and it feels as if there is a hook caught somewhere beneath her ribcage, making her breath shudder and her heart flutter and she swallows as she turns around, bracing herself for that face, those blue eyes and that unruly blond hair.

And finds, as she knew she would, knew from that voice, Raoul De Chagny, standing there, smiling a little awkwardly.

"It's all in the name of the art, Raoul! You should know that." The old remembered words from years ago, from college, flow easily, as if no time has passed at all, as if they have always been finding each other in supermarkets, and Raoul frowns a moment, only a moment, and then his face lights up and his smile becomes a grin.

"I _do_ know that." A beat, and he glances at her trolley, and back to her. "Do you have much more to get here?" And is she imagining it? Or is there a hopeful note in his voice?

"I'm finished, actually. I just got distracted." And she waves her hands at the rows of Blue-Rays behind her. "You?" _Please let him be busy, please let him be busy._ She's never liked running into people in shops, especially people she has not seen in literal years. It's always so stilted, so weird trying to talk to them. Aaaahhhh why did she not say she was busy and move on? But then, if he's finished, he might suggest going around with her and talking, and she should leave, now, just leave. Abandon her trolley, claim her phone is vibrating, fake a call from Erik and rush home.

But then she would have to explain to Erik about _why_ she rushed home without the groceries even though he was insistent on her getting more bread for the turkey stuffing.

Raoul smiles, and her heart sinks. "I'm done too. I was just going to the check-out, actually. Would you like to go somewhere? Just to get tea and catch-up?" She almost expects him to add, _I know a great little place down the street_ , but the words never come, and she is left trying to find an answer.

Every fibre of her is screaming, _no, no_. She does not _want_ tea with Raoul, would much prefer to go home to her husband. But Raoul looks so hopeful, and it would not be polite of her to say no, and besides, it would disappoint him if she did and the last time she said _no_ to him it hurt him so badly and—and—

And the "Yes" she answers with is not entirely half-hearted.

* * *

They settle for the café around the corner. She orders tea, lemon and ginger with a dash of honey and just a hint of cinnamon, and he gets a latté, toffee nut flavour, for the season, with whipped cream on top and toffee sprinkles. It looks delicious, but even if she does not sing professionally any more she cannot help but be anxious for her voice.

The tea is more than enough for her.

They talk idly for a little while, inconsequential things. The weather ("…the snow is lovely but the roads are a mess…" "…a heavy fog to come in tonight…" "…at least this time the warnings are not exaggerations…"), politics ("…talk of an election in the springtime…", she has always tended to vote socialist, or if not socialist then to the left, and Raoul has always wavered more. They used to debate it in college), films ("…still very mixed about _The Last Jedi_ …" "…can't wait for _The Shape of Water_ …" "…a new Les Mis adaptation…", "Do we really need another one?", "We always need another one, Raoul.") It is as if they are back in college, as if twelve years have rolled away in an instant.

But twelve years have not rolled away, no matter how it feels like that. And the passage of time is all too apparent when Raoul says, his eyes gentle, "I've seen your cds in the shops. And on iTunes. You must be doing well."

She had wondered when it would come up, the question of the career, the career that she had dreamed of, had lived for, had put everything into in those halcyon days of their youth. It was bound to happen that he would ask. "I—" she swallows, "I only perform occasionally now. A few years ago I went back, and got my degree to become a teacher. Music, of course. And I enjoy it, it's nice. I love seeing all the students, helping them. Some of them have great potential and it's wonderful to be part of that. I never thought I could be a teacher, but now it just feels right."

And Raoul raises an eyebrow, his old trademark way, and she wonders, distantly, if he does that with witnesses in the box. "And Erik? What does he think of that?"

 _It was because of Erik I did it,_ she thinks but does not say. _I was afraid to be away from him, afraid something might happen to him and I was so busy all of the time, and he had been so ill._ But none of that is Raoul's business, none of it he needs to know and for so long it was too painful to think about, never mind talk about. "He—he was not impressed at first. In fact, that's an understatement. He thought it was a disaster, that I was throwing everything away and in a way I was but he couldn't understand. We had a huge fight over it, but after that he got used to the idea. He's happy now, I think, that I did make the change. He has me all to himself in the evenings and at the weekends and he's usually composing during the day anyway so it all works out. We record his demos together, he plays and I sing. It's all written for my voice you see, and sometimes he gets invited to events but he never goes unless I'm able to join him, and when I perform he's always there, and it's good. It's great." It's as if she has to justify it to him, the course her life has taken, the fact that she could have made a different choice, could have married him instead, could have tried to make her career work around his even though it would have left neither of them with much time for each other. But that was always where the difficulty lay. She loved Raoul, or at least was infatuated with him, and they always had great fun together, but she didn't love him enough, not enough to try to make such a difficult thing work. And she loved Erik so much more, and still does, and always will, and she has no doubt of that, none at all. Erik has music flowing through his veins, and whether or not they are fighting his eyes always light up for her, the brown and the blue alike. He is beautiful, truly, wholly, remarkably beautiful, even with his scars (and the tattoos are both beautiful and terrible), even with his distortion, the delicate skin, the baldness, the depression in his nose. Sometimes she would swear that the mangled half of his mouth is a thousand times more sensitive to her kisses and her touch than the normal half. He is remarkably beautiful in his own way, and it is one more thing that Raoul could never see, could never understand.

"We're happy," she says, and looks Raoul dead in the eye, "happier now than we've ever been in all of our time together."

Raoul nods, as if to say, _that's good_ , but he still doesn't understand, not really, so she goes on, her head held high. "And I've never once regretted it, you know, never once. I've loved him every moment of every day, and I'll always love him."

Raoul nods again, and for a moment Christine wonders if she sees a glimmer of something (sadness, maybe) in his eye, but then the moment is gone, and she is asking him about his own situation, and he is doing well, is happy, too, in a relationship with an Iranian architect named Darius, and he qualifies it with, "I'm not gay. I'm—actually I'm—I'm bisexual. It—well, it took a little bit of getting used to."

And in spite of everything, Christine chuckles. "I'll bet."

* * *

They part on good terms, a friendly shake of hands and a promise to keep in touch. It is raining, the snow ended once more though it lingers on the ground as she climbs into her car and heads for home. She does not turn on the radio, not this time. There is no music she can think of that can do justice to the feelings in her heart, the bittersweetness over Raoul, the love for Erik. So she simply drives, and tries not to think, and sooner than she expects the gravel is crunching underneath as she pulls up in front of the house that Erik bought for her, secluded and safe from prying eyes. And she turns off the engine, eases out the key, and steps out, the rain still misting down and miserable. But there is no misery in her heart, only lightness, and happiness.

She opens the front door of the house, and finds silence. She had expected music, had expected Erik to be either composing or annoyed that she was away so long. _This prep work is time-sensitive, Christine._ But he is not in the kitchen, and everywhere is tidy, all of the rings of the cooker turned off. It is to be a quiet Christmas, just the two of them. Dinner, and wine, cuddling together by the fire, and he wanted to do all of the preparation today, so as not to have to deal with it tomorrow.

So where is he, if the kitchen is deserted?

It is puzzling more than troubling, and she listens again for music, but finds only soft snoring, coming from the living room.

The first she sees is the Christmas tree, its lights changing slowly, blue to red to green to gold, and the fire has simmered low, needs stoking. But there is Erik, sprawled on the couch, asleep, his face slack, the knuckles of one hand brushing the floor, the twined roses up his arm looking dark in the low light, his wedding ring shining. This is him. This is her husband, and she smiles at him, feeling more peaceful than she has in a long time, and bows her head, and kisses his forehead, and brushes back a thin curl of hair, and her heart is aching full of him, as if the whole world has shrunk down to this, shrunk down to him. "Merry Christmas, my love," she breathes against his skin. "Merry Christmas."

* * *

 **A/N: I hope you have all enjoyed this little departure from usual stuff! Please review and Merry Christmas! Or happy holidays if you do not celebrate Christmas!**

 **(I'm leaving this marked in progress for now, because I haven't decided if I want to do a fluffy E/C Christmas chapter to follow up or not. Not saying I will, but I'm thinking about it.)**


End file.
